December 3 - Collaboration

So I've been blogging daily for nearly two years and I have to admit, I feel like I'm getting kind of stale. Or at least the exercise isn't producing the end result I might have wanted when I started out on the endeavor two years ago. My first thought was to make it through December and then release myself from the self-imposed obligation to post every day, go back to posting only when I have something really interesting to say. But then I had another idea.

This idea has the potential to kick-start this blog into something better than what it is, and also to gauge how many people are even reading it. Which also means that if nobody participates in this idea with me, I'll probably just stop the daily thing and blog when I have something to say. But my idea is to have a blog where you guys get to pick the topics. All of them. And they can be whatever you want them to be.

My thought is to start a public Google calendar where you guys can fill in the topics for each day of the year. They can be random, they can be poignant, if you want to claim your birthday now for a special shout-out, go for it. Whatever you'd like me to talk about, whether I've talked about it before or not, I will be beholden to your whims to write my blogs. If you fill in enough dates, I'll blog daily. If you don't, I'll blog on the days where there are topics. And I will certainly credit you and link to your blog or whatever when I post about your topic if you provide that information when you fill in a day.

So what do you think? Do you want to steer the direction of this blog in 2015?

November 14 - Long-Term

As an absolute last minute thing, I got to see a friend of mine yesterday who I have not seen in at least six years. A lot has happened for both of us in that time, so there was a lot of catching up to do. One thing I found really nice about our conversation, though, was that it wasn't entirely past-focused. We talked about the present and the future just as much if not more than all of the things we had missed.

Side note: one other thing I really love about talking with this friend is that we have actual conversations. I find myself in situations quite often where I ask someone about their life or opinions or goals or whatever and they don't then turn around and ask questions back. I don't know if that is an introvert/extrovert thing, or a product of our society wherein we're so focused on what we're doing that we don't invest very much in those around us, or if I'm really so dull that people just don't want to know, but it's a thing that happens. Which leaves me feeling like I'm in either a one-sided conversation or a one-sided relationship, or it forces me to be more extroverted and just tell people the things I think they should know about me instead of waiting for them to ask and as an introvert, I hate having to tell people things. I'd much rather that they ask so I don't sound like I'm bragging. But with this friend, he asked about my life as much as I asked about his. We talked through ideas and celebrated each other's successes and empathized with each other's sadnesses. It was a true conversation. For that and for many other reasons, I will always love this man.

Back on topic: one of the things we talked about in terms of future plans on my side of things is an idea I had a little while ago for a video series. He was very encouraging and thinks my idea is a good one. We even added a little whimsy to it, which might help attract a larger audience. But I find myself thinking more and more about it today. It is a project that is personal to me, something I would like to learn more about and then share with others, something I think I could have a lot of fun doing. And it is something I could do on my own. I've been submitting to the odd audition announcement here and there and have not been getting invited in to read, and I'm feeling like my luck in getting three shows right off the bat upon arriving in New York might be wearing thin. Not that I'll never get cast again, but it could be a little while before my next show. So maybe it is time to start working, really working, on this longer-term project. I like long-term projects. It's something I can really dive into and devote time and energy to, and the more time I spend in pre-production, the better the videos will be. Which is good because finding a space to shoot videos given my current living situation could prove challenging.

Anyway. Much love to my friend, and thank you for giving me a little kick in the pants to keep moving toward my goals.

August 15 - Hamlet

I'm thinking about Hamlet a lot today. Not exactly sure why, but she's in my brain.

Disclaimer: I know a lot of people are used to thinking about Hamlet in the masculine (i.e. his uncle killed his dad and married his mom), but since I played her, I tend to think of her in the feminine (i.e. her uncle killed her dad and married her mom). So please pardon me when I refer to Hamlet as a she.

Today, I am specifically thinking about the infamous "To be or not to be" speech, probably because there has been so much talk of suicide and depression this week and in the past, when I have been depressed, I have read this speech out loud and it is perfect. It captures my depression and my weakness and my powerlessness perfectly. If you don't know the speech, let's take a look at it (borrowed from here):

To be, or not to be, that is the Question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe
No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end
The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes
That Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation
Deuoutly to be wish'd. To dye to sleepe,
To sleepe, perchance to Dreame; I, there's the rub,
For in that sleepe of death, what dreames may come,
When we haue shuffel'd off this mortall coile,
Must giue vs pawse. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,
The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd Loue, the Lawes delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes
That patient merit of the vnworthy takes,
When he himselfe might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardles beare
To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne
No Traueller returnes, Puzels the will,
And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,
Then flye to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,
And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution
Is sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard their Currants turne away,
And loose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons
Be all my sinnes remembred.

Some of that looks a little odd, yes? This is the First Folio text, the First Folio being sort of the first official publication of Shakespeare's works, after someone bothered to sit and write them all down. There are other Folios, too, like different editions, that might have different spellings or different punctuation, or that may have this soliloquy happen in a different place in the play. But most Shakespeare scholars tend to turn to the First Folio to try to get as close to Shakespeare's original meanings as possible. If you're not used to reading First Folio text, here are a few hints to help navigate:

• The letter U often looks like the letter V, so "vndiscovered" is actually "undiscovered." 
• Similarly, the letter F often looks like the letter S, and J and I can look similar, because they wrote in very pretty script back then. 
• This soliloquy is written in iambic pentameter (as is most of Shakespeare's verse work), which means each of those lines has ten syllables that happen in a sort of duh-DUN-duh-DUN-duh-DUN-duh-DUN-duh-DUN pattern. 
• A break from this pattern, either in the rhythm of it or in the number of syllables, is intended as an insight into the mental state of the character. For example, some lines have eleven syllables and end on a down-note instead of an up-note. This could indicate sadness or madness or just general off-ness, flusteredness, or confusion. 
• Just because you have come to the end of a line does not mean you have come to the end of a thought. 
• Thoughts end with sentence ending punctuation, like periods, exclamation points, and questions marks. 
• Commas indicate a slight pause, a breath. 
• Colons and semi colons can indicate a shift in thought pattern, and often, a breath. 
• Parentheses are sort of asides, or tangents. 
• If a sentence ends in the middle of a verse line, the next sentence is a rather quick continuation on to the next thought, almost like the speaker is trying to avoid being interrupted. He or she still has more to say and needs to indicate that with the ending of one sentence and the beginning of the next. 
• Verse line endings can indicate that a character needs to "search" for the next word by answering the questions "who," "what," "where," "when," "why," or "how," though this does not mean that every verse line needs to have a big dramatic pause before continuing on to the next. 
• I learned most of this from taking classes with Susan Hart and Jeffrey Carlson and by reading Thinking Shakespeare by Barry Edelstein. I would highly recommend both these classes and this book. Seriously.

The bit that a lot of people look at when looking at this soliloquy is the first bit, "To be, or not to be, that is the question," because that is the first bit and the easiest to remember. And it can mean a million and one different things. I had a sort of awakening when one my high school teachers told us to put the iambic pentameter rhythm to the line and you realize that the emphasis falls on the "is" instead of on the "that." Also, it is an eleven syllable line, so an irregular one, indicating an irregular state of mind. So it's like Hamlet has been searching for answers and not knowing what to do, and she is finally able to identify the problem in it's basest context. The question really is, "To be or not to be." That's it. That is the question that needs to be answered. Now, a lot of people, including myself, attribute this to the contemplation of suicide. I've certainly used it in that context, as mentioned above. And it makes sense. Hamlet has been dealing with a lot of shit recently - her dad was murdered by her uncle, who then married her mom, and the ghost of her dad came back to tell her that not only is his afterlife hellish, but that she needs to avenge his death. She thinks she's going crazy, she feels betrayed by her friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and she hasn't really gotten to talk to her mom about any of this, which, from my point of view, would have helped a lot. I always feel better after I talk to my mom. So Hamlet gets a solitary moment (sort of, she's being spied on, as has become the norm in her life lately), and she wonders aloud whether or not she should end it. It makes sense.

But I think it makes sense in a broader context, too. Apparently, it wasn't until the German Romantics got their hands on Hamlet that she became the moody, ineffectual, emo drip we all expect her to be these days. I haven't seen the articles myself, but the man who played Claudius to my Hamlet did a bunch of research and found that the idea of Hamlet being a man of inaction wasn't so played up until the German Romantics. He had previously been depressed and angry, yes, but not quite the removed, whiny twit we associate the character with, as portrayed by, say, Ethan Hawke. If you listen to the DVD commentary of Hamlet: The Series, I believe he talks about it more intelligently than I am here, because he is the one who actually looked into it. But anyway, when I was looking at Hamlet trying to figure out how to play her, I realized that the language and her actions and whatnot don't necessarily support the idea that she is inactive or ineffectual. She coordinates with the guards to see the ghost. She follows and talks to the ghost. She tasks her friends with keeping her secrets. She concocts this whole "crazy person" personae to throw other people off of her real plan to kill Claudius. She ferrets out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's plans to spy on her. She tries to protect Ophelia. She organizes a play, and writes a new speech to be performed in the play. She finally confronts her mother. She kills Polonius in Act III, thinking it is Claudius. She is completely prepared to fulfill her mission in Act III and does, except it is the wrong guy. She cleans that up. She escapes her own murder by having Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed instead. And she finally returns to Denmark and gets her revenge. How can one say she does nothing in the course of the play?

So with that in mind, "to be or not to be" could also contain elements of "should Claudius be allowed to live or not" and "should I become a killer or should I not?" Which is a huge question that then speaks volumes about the motivations behind Hamlet's hesitation about killing Claudius on a whim. Many of the things she does throughout the play are to try to get proof that the ghost is telling the truth, that Claudius really did kill her dad. I think it is safe to assume that Hamlet had not previously killed anyone - her dad was the war hero, she was a scholar away at school. And the decision to take another's life is not one that should be made lightly. I think Hamlet wants to know that if she does this, if she becomes a murderer, she will be able to live with herself and the consequences afterward. 

I don't think that in the performance of the line "to be or not to be," the actor has to choose only one of these options. I think that all of these thoughts exist in Hamlet at the time, so there should be elements of all of these interpretations behind this speech. It is a momentous speech designed to talk through a momentous decision, that is obviously causing her distress since she starts with four irregular verse lines in a row.

She spends the next few lines romanticizing the sleep of death, and how nice it would be to not have to deal with the shit life throws at a person, speaking very regularly and logically, before getting to the root of the problem: fear. We don't know what death is like, so it is hard to make an informed decision about whether death is a better option than life or not. She talks about how people screw each other over, about unrequited love, about the annoyances of governmental involvement, about how life just in general beats a person down, and wonders why people put up with that shit when it would be to just end it with a knife. Something as tiny and simple as a knife could make it all go away. If it wasn't for that fear that we don't know what is next. We don't know what happens after the heart stops. And that fear keeps us plugging away at what we do instead of taking action to end things and find out what's next. In more recognizable spellings:

"Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,

And thus the Native hue of Resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of Thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment,

With this regard their Currents turn away,

And lose the name of action."

We're all afraid. And as much as we might want to do something, thinking about it, thinking about the consequences and what is involved in actually doing this thing, scares us away from doing it. Because we can think about it and analyze it, we think about it twice, and out of fear, we choose inaction.

I think Hamlet is pissed off about this. Pissed off at herself, pissed off at being human, annoyed with being burdened with thought. And yes, she could be talking about why she hasn't killed herself and why she hasn't killed Claudius all at the same time. She most likely is. But if anyone (Freud) thinks that the motivations for her "inaction" are missing from the play, this is it. Right here. She is an intellectual, and killing someone (be it herself or someone else) is something she is scared of because she has no way of knowing what comes next. She is scared and frustrated and pissed off about it.

A couple of scenes after this, after she has been very publicly inappropriate with Ophelia in front of both of their parents, and after Claudius has given himself away at the sight of the play, she does stop thinking about it and shoves her knife through the curtains to kill the man who has been spying on her. Unfortunately, it is Polonius instead of Claudius on the other side of the curtain, but still. She takes action. She hits that tipping point where fear doesn't matter anymore and she does what she set out to do.

There has been a lot of talk online about Robin Williams' suicide, and whether suicide in general is selfish or cowardly or desperate or the result of depression or drug use or whatever. I already talked about my depression, and I can't begin to imagine Robin Williams'. But part of the reason "To be or not to be" is such a perfect depression soliloquy in my mind is because it shows how crappy both choices are for those considering suicide. And I think when someone finally makes that decision, as horrific as the rest of us find it, it is because they reach that tipping point where the fear of what comes next is no longer greater than the fear of plodding along with things the way they are. It is not about selfishness or cowardice or any of that. It is about needing something else. I think it takes a great deal of courage and strength to go through with it, a kind of courage and strength I hope nobody I know is ever able to find. And I think it takes a lot of courage and strength to not go through with it, and if anyone needs help finding that kind of courage and strength, please just let me know.

Again, I don't condone suicide. And the desperation that comes with needing that specific something else so badly that one has to take one's own life is tragic in the truest sense of the word. If you find yourself in that place, please find help. Talk to someone. Read this soliloquy out loud and really mean every word. Find your one little branch to hold onto. Talk to me. Suicide is not the best option. Ever. Even Hamlet gets that, even if she is not happy about it.

So that's what I'm thinking about today. How Conscious does make cowards of us all. And how sometimes that is a good thing.

I'm also wondering if I did a video blog series about various Shakespearean scenes or monologues if people would be interested in that. Maybe something to do while I'm in New York looking for other things to do. Who knows?

August 26 - If Only I Was Getting Paid for This...

It's funny - when I see the super skinny celebrities walking around with amazing yoga arms, I think to myself that I could look like that, too, if it was my job to get up and work out every day. Because think about it, when they're not actively working on a project, but are still living off the royalties of sitcoms long since syndicated, what else do they have to do? They have to maintain their appearance so they will continue to be cast-able in this crazy business we call show. I don't mean that to sound derogatory. Often times, their jobs depend on them looking a certain way.

Well, I'm an actor, too, and often times, my job depends on me looking a certain way. And I am sure I have missed out on certain roles because I don't look a certain way. But what if I did? What would happen?

It is really easy for me to claim that I'm too tired or I don't have the time or whatever, but what if I changed my thought process about the whole thing and decided that it is part of my job to work out every day? Maybe not the best motivation for working out that was ever dreamed up, but I think we have all learned from my blogging every day and my vlogging every day and my taking a selfie every day that I am capable of committing to doing something regularly and sticking to it. Why not apply this to working out?

I think I'm going to give it a try. I was originally thinking I would start on September 1, once VEDA is over, but I will admit, I'm feeling a bit of a void this morning since I don't have a Hamlet shoot this weekend (and won't for a few weeks). So maybe when I get home, I'll do a little workout. See how it goes. Pretend that getting exercise every day is part of my job.

Wish me luck!

July 3 - Problem (Not Really)

I love that I am a creative person. It is largely how I define myself. I think of myself as an artist and a creator, rather than a consumer or destroyer. And truth be told, I am a terrible consumer - I can always think of a reason to not buy something. As I type this, I'm wearing a little black cardigan that is probably five years old and is so worn I have had to fix the sleeve seams two or three times, sew buttons back on it, and the cuffs are now so frayed and stretched out that I can't really push up the sleeves anymore. But I still wear the cardigan because it still functions as a cardigan and I've not been bothered to go buy a new one. Like I said, I'm a terrible consumer. (Unless it is TARDIS themed merchandise, as I seem to have an abundance of that - TARDIS watch, TARDIS notebook, two TARDIS lunchboxes that came with coasters and TARDIS travel mugs, TARDIS teapot (a gift, but still), TARDIS phone case, TARDIS bobblehead, two TARDIS t-shirts - seriously, what is wrong with me?)

But back to the point. I am the creative sort. I like making things, I like having ideas, I like working on projects. And I often find that the more projects I'm working on, the more ideas I get for other projects I should be working on. Granted, not all of them are good ideas and I don't always see all of them through, but it's like creativity begets creativity. The more I'm working, the more I want to work.

Which, of course, means now that Hamlet is in the middle of shooting, I'm being bombarded with ideas. I'm playing my guitar again, I'm auditioning again, and I had one idea this morning that is probably so crazy crack-pot too big for me to handle on my own that it might just be brilliant. My mind is abuzz with plans and thoughts and ideas and people I would want to approach to collaborate and things I'll have to do to sort out the legality of some issues and whatnot and the more I think about it, the more I think it could be really fun.

But, of course, I have to spend about nine hours a day at my day job. Where I don't get to plan and investigate and collaborate on these amazing creative ideas that I have. I have to do the things that I have to do to make money so I can live and have an apartment and eat food while I have all of these lovely creative ideas. Sigh.

Such is the curse of the creative person - trying to find balance between creation and survival. I will admit that maybe my balance is a little too skewed toward survival every now and again. I hope that someday, having to choose between the two and having to schedule time in which to be creative is not such a challenge. I hope someday I just get to create.